Talk:Weapon Analysis

This will be great for any future arguements. Muton commander 20:25, 8 October 2008 (CDT)

Debate re Aimed vs Snap vs Auto efficiency

Would it be unreasonable to correct the TU and/or accuracy values of human weapons, so that if we call the efficiency (hits per unit of time)

K = accuracy/TUs

and we have

Kai (K - Aimed) Ksn (K - Snap) Kau (K - Auto)

we correct the game tables to ensure that for any given weapon:

Kai > Ksn > 3 Kau

( In an unmodified game, this relationship does not hold, in a large number of cases. )

The purpose of this modification would be to ensure that, in terms of delivering hits to the target per unit of time, Aimed fire is more effective than Snap fire, which in turn is more effective than Auto fire.

Otherwise there are few reasons not always use the fastest available fire rate.

(3 reasons I can think of are:

• Conserving ammo - often of minor importance
• Avoiding "collateral damage"
• "First shot kill" - killing the target before it can reaction-fire

But for general combat, there is often no reason to prefer Aimed fire over Snap, or Snap over Auto.

Having said that, analysis of 20th century battles showed that ordinary soldiers were more effective at killing the enemy when they were given automatic weapons. Resistance to equipping troops with full auto small arms as standard was mainly on ammunition cost grounds (as well as conservatism). This was further refined by studies showing that a burst mode (as used in XCom) was optimum.

However, this was true only for the ordinary troops, who were found to be too unsettled by combat to fire in a controlled fashion. For the minority who had the presence of mind to fire under control, taking slow, carefully aimed shots was more effective and this is where the bulk of the overall effective firepower of an entire formation would come from.

Now, which group do we think XCom soldiers fall into?

Spike 13:28, 10 November 2008 (CST)

X-COM soldiers are selected as the best available volunteers from the various militaries of the funding nations, according to backstory. Thus they'd probably be more geared towards the latter class. However, given the...shall we say...less-than-ideal stats of some recruits, its clear that even then that's not going to hold. Bravery would probably be one of the main stats applicable to this argument. It should also be noted that X-COM soldiers are fighting a completely different war, one which could well make most regular soldiers break down from the stress alone. Think about it, for the first half of the game, at least, X-COM soldiers are out-equipped, fighting ALIENS, some 4 times thier own size, who can kill them in one glancing hit from a PLASMA weapon, while they themselves have trouble even hurting some of them, and whom are coming from OUTER SPACE in UFOs they can't scratch on the ground and which can VAPORIZE F-22s(or whatever the Interceptor is). That's not even mentioning the funding issues, terror attacks, or psychological scarring. And every time the Skyranger goes out, they can pretty much count on the fact that at least 2 or 3 of the people they're inside it with will be coming back to base in a body bag. This is liable to put ANYONE, even a battle-hardened combat vet of a normal earth military, off balance, at the very least. Which can be seen in how rapidly X-COM recruits tend to panic when things go bad. Overall troop morale would be one X-COM's (or any such organization's) greatest problems.

As for the use of aiming/snap/auto, it's basically been established that in UFO, auto reigns supreme. Whereas in TFTD, auto fire is only available on a handful of weapons, with horrendous accuracy for it, and usually with a fairly small clip. I don't know how many Aquanauts I've had run dry on ammo at a critical moment because I used the Jet Harpoon's Autofire too liberally(read: use at all) TFTD's weapons, however, have awesome Aimed accuracy stats, swinging it in the opposite direction of UFO; aimed is the prefered fire of choice. Also, perhaps use Scout/Sniper some more if you want to use Aimed mode; it increases overall safety. :) Arrow Quivershaft 13:50, 10 November 2008 (CST)

Good points there AQ. It's probably reasonable (for many reasons) to treat XCom's "elite" recruits as effectively rookies when tangling with aliens and alien weapons.

Thinking about auto modes, actually it does make sense that they have better firepower than the other modes. Otherwise why would they be used at all? Auto should be more effective per unit of time, less effective per unit of ammo - which it is.

That being the case, a more moderate proposal would be to tweak the game to ensure that Kai > Ksn, i.e. Aimed fire is more effective than Snap, per unit of time. Surely that is just common sense? Otherwise there is very little reason ever to Aim.

By the way, could you expand on your thoughts about Scout/Sniper? I'm not sure I understand how this tactic gives greater weight to Aimed Fire. Are there any considerations apart from reducing friendly fire and enemy reaction fire?

Spike 09:32, 11 November 2008 (CST)

One additional benefit I can see for using the scout/sniper strategy other than the benefits already mentioned would be the fact that the sniper will not have to move as much, if at all. Therefore the sniper will have more TUs available to make aimed shots. Obviously this means nothing for some weapons that can only be fired once per turn on aimed, but for weapons that can be aimed several times, then every extra TU helps. Just as snaps and auto shots bank on extra attempts to improve their odds of success, the same can apply to aimed shots too. -NKF 22:38, 12 November 2008 (CST)